Matthew Botos

One of my favorite things about our national parks is getting out on the trails, away from the roads and crowds. In Western Rocky Mountain, I had set my sites on the Lulu City Trail, a 7.4 mile fairly-level round trip to an old silver mining town.

With a late afternoon start, we began hiking along the Colorado River and the surrounding forests and streams while keeping an eye out for moose in the meadows. Instead, there were a few robbins, and after crossing a few rock slide areas, a marmot appeared on a boulder above the next bend. I took a few quick photos with my regular lens before switching to my telephoto, at which point it started the rain.

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Visiting the western side of Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado was a new experience. Though I had been to the park before, it was primarily the east side and Trail Ridge Road. Grand Lake is a much more mellow entry point than Estes Park, and the western side of the park seemed similarly quiet and less crowded.

It consists primarily of the Kawuneeche Valley, through which the early stages of the Colorado River flows. It was overcast our first day, making it a great place to watch and hear mountain storms developing. There is something magical yet foreboding in seeing dark clouds building over the mountains as the distant rumble of thunder rumbles across open space.

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The highest paved continuous highway in the United States, Trail Ridge Road climbs over the Rockies between Grand Lake and Estes Park. The views and driving are unparalleled; at 12,183 feet, you’re on par with many of the surrounding peaks.

We started in Grand Lake, passing through the Kawuneeche Valley before climbing above it. Stopping for a few short hikes on the way up quickly confirmed the changing altitude: thinner air, lingering snowbanks, and new critters including marmots and pikas.

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Grand Lake, on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park, was one of my favorite stops on the Colorado trip. A small town on a mountain lake, it still has that mellow, leisurely feel. Our location didn’t hurt, either: a cabin overlooking the lake just a few blocks off the main street.

From looking over the docks out onto the lake and to the mountains, it was a short walk to the main hotel building, where a squadron of hummingbirds were feeding and flying about. The town itself boasted a very old-west feel: wooden sidewalks and overhangs passed various shops and restaurants. It was a nice change to be able to walk to dinner and stroll by the ice cream shop on the way back.

You meet some interesting people traveling, or rather, Chandra does since she’s a bit more outgoing. Coming back from Rocky Mountain one day, we pulled in next to the very colorful Bug Songs van. It turned out the guy sitting on the porch was Tom, who does his program of bug songs for kids across the country. In one of those fortunate turns of events, he had been working for a pest-control company looking to educate people on what they do, and bug songs was born.

The songs themselves are pretty entertaining - bugs sing about their lives in tunes ranging from punk rock to a little Johnny Cash. It made for a fun soundtrack driving through the radio-less mountains of Colorado.

After our stay in Steamboat Springs, Chandra and I drove back up to Rabbit Ears Pass on our way to Grand Lake and Rocky Mountain National Park. We bounced down a few dirt roads at the Dumont campground to begin our hike.

The trail was a slightly inclined, rougher dirt road that wound through high alpine meadows full of wildflowers. The dual rock spires of Rabbit Ears popped in and out of view, and in and out of the light as scattered clouds shifted above. It was a pleasant hike, and we saw more people on it than I expected, as well as getting a closer look at the Rabbit Ears.

Whistler felt like the first big trip I did as a more serious photographer, and I really enjoyed it that respect. Lugging a ton of gear, standing outside in the morning cold, and being perched on the finish line of a race course all added focus to both the trip and my photography.

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Visa racked up the biggest IPO in history yesterday, despite a looming recession and a popped housing market bubble. One stellar piece of analysis explained why they didn’t have to worry: because they make their money at the moment of the sale and leave the banks to worry if the bills will ever be paid.

All money is in fees, for both merchants and cardholders. That includes 1% on any foreign transactions you make, to which many banks now add a few points of their own. On my well-worn Citibank card, it adds up to 3% on everything I charged on recent trips to Belize and Whistler, Canada.

You’d make out much better paying the occasional ATM fee, if you don’t mind carrying around wads of cash. Bankrate.com also provides a table of various bank’s currency conversion costs - I think I’ll be getting a Capital One card before my next trip!

I was initially pretty disappointed in my Belize diving photos since I couldn’t get good color correction afterwards. My dad did some digging, though, and found an excellent video tutorial on another technique:

By using green and blue light in place of the missing red light, you can get a much more balanced photo. If you use GIMP instead of Photoshop, the Channel Mixer can be found under Colors > Components. There’s still a certain tint to the photos, but overall it’s a vast improvement!

View the Belize Diving photos

One of the more interesting places I visited in Belize was La Milpa, part of the Rio Bravo preserve run by the Program For Belize. It’s an out-of-the-way field station in the middle of the rainforest, not far from another Mayan site.

Getting there involved about 2 hours of rough dirt roads from Orange Walk with our guide Vladimir, who picked us up in a pickup already sporting some groceries and a few windshield cracks. The ride passed through more typical Belizean country-side: small villages, Mennonite settlements, fields of sugarcane and rice, and finally some views of Mexican mountains just over the border.

La Milpa itself is really just a clearing in the forest, with thatched roof cabanas, a central dining hall, and their new eco-friendly dorm up the hill. It has the makings to draw an interesting community of visitors, though being the off-season, my Dad and I were the only ones there at the time.

That did mean that we had our own tour guide the whole time. We did morning and afternoon hikes, learning a good bit about the variety of plants and animals and their numerous defense mechanisms. Touring the La Milpa Mayan site was an interesting contrast to Lamanai, in that it’s largely unexcavated and still very much a part of the jungle. And if you forgot it for even a moment, the mosquitos were quick to remind you!

Aside from the hikes and meals, life at La Milpa was as laid back as elsewhere in Belize. There was plenty of time to read, swing in a hammock, or chase the butterflies and turkeys around camp with a camera. Their resident cat set a fine example by lounging in the sun instead of chasing after the numerous birds.

Nighttime was also a treat; the sun sets quickly close to the equator, and then the stars come out. All the stars. I got the same sense of awe I experienced years ago in the Rocky Mountains, looking up from a campground and being able to see dimmer stars and the diffuse band of the Milky Way. We also attempted a night safari drive, and while we didn’t see any jaguars, we did get some smaller treats: a tree frog and a big beetle.